Toni Morrison’s Mom
Here is Toni Morrison talking about her mom’s singing. From an interview with Terry Gross.
Beethoven’s Gift
Here is a quote from Ludwig Van Beethoven as interpreted into English by Corinne Heline in her book ‘Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies – Correlated with the Nine Spiritual Mysteries’. “I have no friend. I must live alone; but I know that in my heart God is nearer to me than in others. I approach him without […]
Everybody’s a Performer and What I Learned About That
You might know that performing has always been my greatest teacher. Performing is kind of like looking at yourself inside a jeweler’s loupe, the audience being the loupe. Last January 15, three of us comMUSIKats went up to Flagstaff to present our idea for a workshop called “Everybody’s a Performer” where I had the chance to see […]
Everybody’s a Performer Performance at Art Tank
On January 15th at 6:30 comMUSIkey will be presenting our proposal to Arizona Art Tank called “Everybody’s a Performer: An extended workshop to develop performance skills for anyone who is willing to make the leap into the musical unknown.” There will be six presenters and three of them will receive $5000 to $10,000 to implement their vision. […]
The Rhythm of Nature
Here is an example of nature creating a groove. These are two different raindrop streams falling from a gutter, one playing three beats against the other’s four. They are slightly different tempos so they go in and out of phase with other, similar to Steve Reich’s Phasing Music. They cycle back and forth between a […]
Who’s Musical?
Who’s musical? Hint: Everyone Originally published in 5enses Magazine MAY 30, 2014 • Photo by Ramona Smith. By Jonathan Best Go outside and listen to the musical terrain. Start walking and listen to it change as you take part in its rhythm. The terrain is vast. It extends as far as the ear can hear. […]
Our Musical Terrain
Go outside a listen to the musical terrain. Start walking and listen to it change as you take part in its rhythm. This is collaboration at its finest. The terrain is vast. It extends as far as the ear can hear. Listen to the distant reaches. Maybe there’s a chain saw barely audible in the […]
How Can There Be Wrong Notes When There Aren’t Any Notes At All?
In my studies at MUSIC FOR PEOPLE I learned that there are no wrong notes. My favorite Thelonius Monk quote is “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.” Well I’m here to tell you that the piano ain’t got any notes at all. Read on. I’m always on the lookout for things that get in […]
Moving to the rhythm ‘can help language skills’
Moving in time to a steady beat is closely linked to better language skills, a study suggests.
What Makes Great Music
Only one person showed up to my playshop today. So we had a chance to focus in. We started with what Music for People calls “One Quality Sound” where everybody just sings whatever note happens to come out of their mouth and we listen to the quality of that spontaneous chord. In our case it […]